Saturday 6 October 2012

Interview with Nick Orsini

Today we welcome author Nick Orsini into our interview room, so read on and enjoy...


Interview with Nick Orsini


Why don’t you begin by telling us a bit about yourself?

I’m 26, living in New Jersey and working in New York City. I have big dreams of moving into the city and owning a small corgi. I work in advertising but have been writing every waking hour I’m not making commercials. At 11 years old, in the car with my mom, I told her, “I want my life to be weird.”


Your latest novel, Fingerless Gloves recently won the Fiction Fast-Track competition at Apostrophe Books (http://apostrophebooks.com/fictionfasttrack).  Can you tell us about that experience and give a short synopsis of the book?

Fingerless Gloves (http://apostrophebooks.com/fingerlessgloves) is about Anton, who’s drifting through his mid-20’s in a haze of pot smoke and TV dinners, while working a low-level job just to keep up with basic expenses. One night, Anton’s best friend, James, collapses for no reason and needs to be rushed to the hospital. The book is the story of the 24-hours it takes Anton to figure out what happened to James. Throughout the book, Anton runs into old friends, ex-girlfriends and family members. It’s a timely story about our economy here in the States and the way we’ve been dealing with joblessness or the fact that now, it takes someone 30 years just to get started. It’s about the nature of friendship after college, and the old habits we keep to convince us that we’re not getting any older.
Winning the Fiction Fast-Track competition was a pretty remarkable experience. I can’t say thank you enough to the people who voted for my book and gave it star ratings. The team at Apostrophe has been an amazing help. It’s nice to have this idea that something you worked so hard on now gets a chance to be out there in the world.


You also have another book published, Two Wrongs Make a Vice, plus a poetry collection.  Tell us a bit about them.

Two Wrongs Make a Vice is my first book that I self-published the year after I graduated Marist College. It’s a stream-of-consciousness story about every embarrassing moment in the life of this teenage boy. It’s about music, being ridiculed, traumatic experiences, and the pains of stretching beyond a comfort level. It was so nice to have so much help with that book, from the mentors who encouraged me to the people who tweeted in the chapter titles.
My poetry collection is called Bruce Willis with Hair …it’s a compilation of some of the poetry on my blog and people can download it …for free! At www.twowrongsmakeavice.com


You have a background in Film History and Criticism.  How much has that influenced your books?

My background has influenced my books a ton. I try to write visually, thinking of how the images I’m trying to make with words will play out in someone’s head. Fingerless Gloves is book about details and how we gather importance from even the most mundane things. I liken it to American Graffiti or Dazed and Confused. I grew up writing about films and filmmakers, trying to pick apart stories and interpret them in a scholarly way. I try to apply that as much to my own original writing as I possibly can.


Why did you decide to begin writing?

Through high school, I kept an emotional journal littered with jumbled thoughts. In college, I tried to write analytically about films, but also creatively through poetry and short stories. I never considered myself an organized writer, just someone who enjoyed telling stories. I was in my 20’s when I decided to try to hone the skill and work on my organization.


What or who are your inspirations?

In no particular order: Hunter S. Thompson, Dylan Thomas, Richard Linklater, Nick Hornby, Chuck Klosterman…and, this is going to sound corny, but everyone who has ever written to me through my blog or website. I’ve gotten the opportunity to hear so many different stories from young people around the world and it feeds into the work, making it more well-rounded and more relatable. People go through a whole spectrum of feelings, and it does impact the way I write.


You write poetry, short stories and novels.  Do you find it challenging switching between those different format styles?

Not really - I write poetry when I have some random thoughts that I want to string together thematically. I write novels when I’m working through organizing a particular story and writing particular characters. I also write non-fiction and that’s usually when something topical or that has some pop-culture relevancy appears urgent to me.


Do you favour writing one of those styles -poetry, short stories or novels- above the others, or do they each bring their own unique writing enjoyment?

They’re all unique. Poetry is amazing because it starts and ends in this timeframe and you get a gratification that’s really unlike writing a novel. Novels develop over time, and when they’re done, I often find myself lost, like I don’t have an extended project to work on anymore. Non-fiction develops over several days or maybe weeks, and when that’s done and you see it published, it’s incredibly gratifying.


What projects are on the horizon for you?

I’m working on my third novel. It’s about a superhero. I’m also ramping up for the wide release of Fingerless Gloves.


Links to buy Fingerless Gloves:
iBookstore USA: http://goo.gl/txhCn
iBookstore UK: http://goo.gl/3vK7n

Links to find out more about Fingerless Gloves:

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